Trial Underway For Tulsa Police Lieutenant

The trial is underway for a Tulsa Police Lieutenant charged with helping cover up a 2020 shooting.

Marcus Harper is charged with accessory for helping conceal evidence of a shooting after fellow officer Latoya Dythe’s car was shot up in a gang-related shooting. 

Dythe was later fired and got federal probation for a separate case of illegally buying a gun for her boyfriend. 

Prosecutors say in August of 2020, Lieutenant Marcus Harper and another officer helped cover up the shooting of Latoya Dythe’s vehicle by taking shell casings out of the car, not making a report, and leaving before other officers showed up. Harper’s attorneys say Harper didn’t help do anything and told his supervisor the next day he’d gone to the scene.  

Dythe testified Tuesday she called Harper for help and advice of what to do after her car was involved in that shooting. Dythe says she let her boyfriend’s brother borrow her car, and there was a shooting near 61st and Peoria where her car ended up with bullet holes. Dythe said Harper showed up in a police uniform with his patrol car and looked at the bullet holes in her car and searched it, along with another Tulsa officer, Ananias Carson. 

She said Harper made comments to Dythe’s friends, who were involved in the shooting, that they need to tell the truth when the police arrived. Prosecutors say Harper left and told them not to tell anyone he was there. 

Police showed up to the apartment hours later and started investigating, but prosecutors say the officers weren’t told Harper and Carson had already been there earlier in the night.

Harper’s attorneys say he went there because Dythe called him and it sounded urgent but he didn’t know what had happened. They say Harper was a mentor to Dythe, and after he asked her what happened, he later told her to call police to make and make a report. 

His attorneys say Harper didn’t know the details of the shooting, didn’t conceal evidence, and Dythe lied to him about what happened. 

Harper has been on leave from Tulsa Police without pay since 2021. The trial is in front of a judge, not a jury.

The other officer involved, Ananias Carson, pled guilty to a misdemeanor of obstructing police and is on probation. He also testified Tuesday and said he and Harper were there at the scene, then left before other officers got there.